Elemental Gestures: Towards a Feeling of Home

Artes Mundi developed a sequence of physical/digital workshops, performances and commissions from Welsh and Wales based artists and thinkers alongside the Artes Mundi 9 exhibition.

Launched on 14 August 2021 and including a short film by Catriona Abuneke entitled Finding Jane and live music and ritual performances by Mary-Anne Roberts, Adéọlá’s new multi-media installation for Artes Mundi, Elemental Gestures: Towards a Feeling of Home, was presented on the facade of Grange Pavilion.

Evoking the essence of the deity Yemonja/Yemaya/Yemoja, the new multi-media work incorporated costume which was photographed and printed as large-scale banners, and then overpainted to create seven iterations of Yemonja. Hailing from Yoruba spirituality with manifestations in the African Diaspora, Yemonja can be understood as mother of the ocean, sustaining yet turbulent.

This work is a gesture from the artist, creating a continuum in her practice, in the hope of making connection with the pieces of herself left on other shores.

The work contributed to the radical engagements with water and diasporic identity that feature especially in the work of artists Firelei Baez and Dineo Seshee Bopape, seen in the biennial exhibition Artes Mundi 9 presented across Cardiff at National Museum Cardiff, Chapter and g39.

With thanks to Jane Rees-Blades, Catriona Abuneke, and Mary-Anne Roberts for their collaboration on this project.

Adéolá is a visual artist, researcher and presenter based in Wales. Originally from Trinidad and Tobago, her work explores expressions of identity and belonging in the diaspora. Adéọlá’s work is invested in the ways in which emancipatory performances such as Carnival, masquerades and rituals can inform approaches to art-making. She is currently the Founder and Co-Director of Laku Neg: a burgeoning digital artist initiative for African diaspora artists, which promotes the exchange of African diaspora knowledge through memory, philosophy, performance and storytelling, as a key focus for a reparations agenda. She is also an hourly paid lecturer at the University of South Wales.

Artists